Liberal Grace

A Third of White Evangelicals Voted Liberal

When I reveal that I'm a liberal evangelical, I'm often seen as some sort of crazy contradiction. Hardly! There are millions of us.

Yes, the aggressive (and cynical) courting of white evangelicals by the Republicans has worked but it's a relatively new thing and never was a total take over. As recently as 1988 evangelicals were evenly split between Republican and Democrat. In 1999 it was as close as 39% Republican to 26% Democrat.

In this article from the AP, about today's election it notes:

"In a sign of a dispirited GOP base, most white evangelicals said corruption was very important to their vote — and almost a third of them turned to the Democrats."

So good news. Some evangelicals are coming to their senses.

A Minor Point: I don't mean to be split hairs but it wasn't a full-third that "turned" to the Dems. Not even close. Millions of us never turned away.

According to this helpful article by Pew, 30% of evangelicals voted against Bush in 2000 although that dipped down to 21% in 2004. So, the "swing" is not the full 33%.

But the swing is larger than these numbers suggest because of the designation "white." The general "evangelical" designation includes a lot of black people who are faithful liberal Christians.

posted by LiberalGrace at 9:01 PM